Man of a Thousand Faces
by lifesrace
Summary: A series of snapshots into a world of contrast. The lives of immortals living among us. AU-Modern Day.


**Author's Note: **Ok, so I got rid of the first chapter, because I didn't like it. This is new.

This will be an extremely AU fic that takes place in modern day. At one point I may explain why they are in our world, or how this happened entirely, but for now, I will just say that they are there because of the evolution of the world and time, not because they were magically transported or anything. The story will not necessarily be in chronological order, but hopefully it will be enough for people to piece together.

Warning, this chap will be angsty, hopefully you will have to bring out the kleenex!

Note, I mainly listened to **This Is Gospel **by Panic at the Disco and **Call Them Brothers** by Regina Spektor while writing to this, so if you feel suddenly inspired to listen, it's worth it.

All memories will be in italicizes...

Enjoy :)

* * *

Leon sat on a well-worn chair in eastern Austria.

The chair was well over 500 years old and yet the male who was perched on its upholstery seemed to view it as nothing more than an old musty recliner.

One leg was hooked over an arm of the chair like it was a familiar tree branch while the rest of his lanky body found home on all the wrong spots of the abused furniture.

He used the chair like this because it was how he had always sat on furniture and, most importantly, he was much, much older than it.

Three-thousand odd years older in-fact.

When the chair had been bought, his name had been Leonardo, before that, Laurence, and long before that even, it had been Legolas.

That name was both the closest and most painful to him.

It was his closest because it was his identity and most painful because it represented everything that he had lost.

Because of this, unless he was among the few who knew him for everything he was, he liked to pretend that the name of Legolas was as forgotten to him as the cold cup of tea that laid just centimeters below his dangling ivory hands.

After all, what was a name if you had no-one to share it with?

When one is slightly inebriated and more than a little nostalgic, random strangers with beautiful bodies and mortal names sometimes seemed like the perfect solution to this age old problem of his.

However, he always lost to the very nature of humanity.

Greed.

Desire.

Lust.

Power.

Money.

Human's longed for these things more than love even, leaving the elf to do what he had been doing for the last thousand years.

Picking up the broken pieces of humanity and trying to protect the few things that were left of his own immortal world.

It was terrifying really.

All it took was a whisper of a name, the beginning of a secret, and his precious cover, the little left of his sanity, was crushed.

In the age of the Internet and the information hungry, Legolas really had no chance.

_Yet, the world spun on._

The world spun on even as his mind fell into a slow descent toward madness.

A state of complete lonliness.

A lifetime of memory and exhaustion.

An existence where the only place you call home is an abandoned estate so, so far removed from the earth that only the locals even know it exists.

_You take to walking around the halls, building a palace of memory in each floorboard._

The floorboard in front of the foyer is where he buried Elrohir. Not his body of course. His body was preserved under a false name in the Alps.

He had chosen that floorboard because next to it was the cabinet that holds the gun. The gun that had wiped the lifeblood out of the prince's body.

Elladan didn't know about the gun.

It would kill him to know the truth about the weapon, and because of this, he would never accept the reality of what had happened.

It hadn't been the weather that killed his brother.

Icicles and rocks don't create bullet holes.

They had been hiking in the alps. Elrohir was high as a kite. Mushrooms were his poison. It was how he coped with the change, the continuity of everything. His brothers were terrified for him, for his sanity. Elves were pure creatures: dirtying blood with something as damaging as drugs was an unthinkable act. Disturbing even on a surface level.

The three companions had taken to the mountains because they thought that maybe it would help, even just for a moment to remember what they had been. Up there, you could almost fool yourself into imagining that you were trekking through the Misty Mountains and that at the end, maybe in a few days, you would reach Rivendell.

_Legolas held onto his friend's shoulder, guiding him through the rocky trespasses, the hidden cracks in the foundations of the earth. _

_As a rule, they never talked on this journey. They never talked about it either._

_It was not scheduled at any time, because time didn't matter. Not when you were three immortal beings living in a palace made of memories._

_"Look at this mountain!" Elrohir kicked the side of a mountain and a large chunk of rock came off. "Really look at it you fools. We are older even than this rock. This rock without memories, this rock without care. Even it is falling apart."_

_Now he was shouting. Shouting over the wind and the song of the world._

_"How can nature be so cruel as to leave me to the fate of the rocks. ALWAYS living. ALWAYS dying. ALWAYS falling apart. NEVER ending."_

_Elladan watched his brother's pupils dilate and his breath quicken and began to make a move toward the rock where he was standing._

_"I'm weary of this life. Always dreaming, wandering, pretending like we can cope in this empty shell that humanity has carved. Are you not tired dear brothers?"_

_The wind picked up and with it came a shower of snow that threatened to crumble the cracked rock the twin stood on so precariously._

_"I do not wish to reach the top of this mountain, because the only place left to go is down. I cannot cope anymore, cannot repress the memories. I envy you all."_

_Elrohir pulled out a gun and the terrorized audience ran toward their dearest friend, in hopes of stopping the madness._

_"If you take another step, we all go down." The monster that had taken Elrohir soul laughed and with it came the accompanying cry of his brother._

_"I cannot allow that," Elrohir spoke, "It is your life to use. I will not decide for you."_

_Elrohir seemed to hesitate for a moment as tears ran down his face._

_"My brothers. I am sorry."_

_He held the gun to his skull and embraced the cold of the metal with welcome._

_"Leithio nin. Boe i 'waen. Galu."_

_(Release me. I must leave. I am sorry.)_

_Legolas moved all the same, but even the strength of his bloodlines couldn't outrun the flight of the bullet._

_"Namaarie gwador. Quel kaima."_

_(Farwell my brother. Sleep well)_

_Legolas spoke the words with finality and his hands outstretched to the cliff, hoping to reach for a body that had long since found its home in the crevasse._

_Even so, his words couldn't be heard over the screaming of Elladan. The screaming that would haunt Legolas's sleep for centuries. The screaming that broke the mountain, for in that moment, the world seemed to sympathize with the two lost souls and weep with the very material that made its foundation._

_Legolas jumped on top of Elladan, tackling him to the ground to console him in his grief and shield him from the cascade of rocks, hoping to stop the death that would shatter him._

_BOOM._

_Eru save us._

_BOOM_

_The earth shook with the force._

_Legolas felt blinding pain as monstrous rock slammed into his ribcage, nearly knocking him unconscious._

_It wasn't until a host of smaller rocks surrounded him that he finally let himself fall asleep to the world._

* * *

_Several days later a company of climbers attempted the side of the mountain and literally stumbled into the bodies of the two immortal beings._

_To their surprise, both of them held a faint pulse, despite severe injuries and frostbite that told a tale of disaster._

_With the help of ropes and a lot of heart, the men carried the two to the base of the mountain where they were given immediate medical attention._

_The year was 1937, just before the start of the war, and in the heart of the alps, they did not ask questions or submit medical reports. Had they had the equipment, they could have performed a blood transfusion. This would have revealed their distinctly inhuman characteristics as well as killing them. Strange ears were easier to write off than non-existent records of not only blood types, but of a birth-date._

_Legolas woke up three days after the accident in silent screams and tears, scaring the doctor out of a negligent slumber._

_"Where is my brother?"_

_His voice was too hoarse convey the urgency of the question._

_Legolas attempted to push away the covers and shoot out of the hospital bed, but was met by the strong hands of the doctor._

_"Shh… you are sick. You've been unconscious for three days. Your fever is still very high, probably due to blood loss and hypothermia."_

_There was a pause in his words and it was full of questions._

_"You have been yelling strange words in your sleep. Your brother is in the other room, he is injured, but woke up yesterday. He is doing better than you physically, but he has yet to speak. Do you know of any reasons for this?"_

_Legolas unconsciously let out a stream of Elvish curses as the events of three days ago rushed past him._

_"I must see him."_

_The doctor ran his hands over his face._

_"Drink this and you can see him."_

_Legolas blinked blearily. He too familiar with sleeping remedies to fall for this trap._

_"I'm not stupid you know…."_

_The doctor laughed._

_"No, I don't think you are. I do think you need to rest though."_

_Legolas seemed to be dozing off._

_"If you can down some broth and a glass of water, I'll let you see him. You've been out a long time though. Don't expect too much out of yourself."_

_Legolas complied reluctantly a few minutes later when the doctor came back with supplies. Even so, the man frowned as the elf stood up shakily to meet his sibling. The doctor even had to go so far as to support and lead his patient through the halls. The combination meds, blood-loss, and consistent pain made the elf dizzy and shaking to the point of passing out. It wasn't a new situation for him._

_When they finally got to their destination, Legolas asked the doctor to leave them alone together._

_He opened the door and the broken creatures looked at each-other with tears._

_Elladan was sitting in a chair in the corner, looking like a broken doll, a fallen angel._

_"What happened out there?"_

_Legolas answered with surprising confidence._

_"This world took him. There was nothing you could have done. I am sorry my brother."_

_Sensing Elladan needed time to process this, Legolas left the room, passing out on the wall._

_He woke up in his own room some time later and followed the doctors orders if only to escape the town as quickly as possible. There were too many memories there. His own health was worth the compromising for emotional relief._

_And his health was certainly compromised. Even with Elven healing, Legolas still felt constant, incredible pain from his concussion and shattered ribs when he escaped the town with Elrohir four days later._

_They boarded a train back to Legolas's estate in Austria and tried their hardest not to look back at the fallen remains of their companion._

_The train ride was silent, as were the agonizing months that followed, for that was the nature of grief._

_It burns sharper than any injury._

* * *

Even now, nearly eighty years later, when Legolas walked across that floorboard, he could remember each of those days with distinct clarity. Elvish memory had always been a curse to him.

Now, when he left the house, he frequently took the back door, in hopes that the memories there with be a little less brutal.

Sometimes, in desperation he would take the window, because rarely did anything negative come from that escape.

Windows were for memories of pranks and late night escapades.

The floorboard by the foyer was nothing like a window at all.

* * *

Legolas walked through the halls in search of rest.

He had yet to find it here.

Not in these walls.

Not in the walls that sang songs of grief and ghosts.

He sometimes sang to block out the noises of all the men who had died, but they mostly brought him back to their memory.

This was the curse of the elves.

Always living.

Always dying.

Always falling apart.

Never ending.

It was a terrible life to lead.

* * *

**A/N: **What did you guys think? If you enjoyed it, drop a review :)


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